Just one of a slew of "girl and gorilla" films from the 1950s, The Bride And The Beast is from Ed Wood's script originally called "Queen Of The Gorillas". Bankrolled by Allied Artists and directed by a "professional" Adrian Weiss, it means a much slicker film, with important things like continuity and production values, but there's no mistaking the demented voice of Ed-baby and the weird undertow of aberrant sexuality all the way through the film.
The Bride And The Beast opens with Laura and Dan, just married and already planning a honeymoon safari to Africa. Dan, the quintessential Great White Hunter, has decked out his pad with hundreds of trophies, has a native servant Taro (played by an American actor in black-face) who calls his master "Bawana", and keeps a huge gorilla named "Spanky" (that's actually Ray "Crash" Corrigan under all that fur) in a cage in his basement. Laura, who admits she's had a strange psychic connection with man's hairy cousins her entire life, presses up against Spanky's cage and the sexual tension is electric! Later on their honeymoon evening while the couple are sleeping in separate beds and there's a clear signpost Spanky escapes from his cage, and starts to get overly amorous with Laura. Dan shoots the monkey dead, and they return to their separate beds. Happy Honeymoon.
Laura is clearly shaken by her hairy ordeal, and the family doctor, who just happens to be an expert in hypnotism, is intrigued by her fetish for angoras and dreams in which she's covered in "kitten's fur". Regressing further under hypnosis, she discovers she was a gorilla in a previous life, and re-experiences her death at the hands of native hunters. Here's two of Ed's peccadilloes springing to life from the script's page: his transvestitism, and his keen interest in reincarnation and hypnotism. The doctor's character was directly inspired by his chiropractor Tom Mason, Bela Lugosi's body double in Plan 9, who's credited here as "script consultant".
Things get bogged down when the Great White Hunter takes his bride to Africa. Ah, Africa stock footage capital of the world! I suspect the two never leave the studio none of the shots of wild animals match the action, and when driving a truck, they drive past the same clump of trees seven or eight times in the middle of the savanna! The last half is essentially a lame chase between Bawana and a couple of renegade tigers that is, until Laura cracks her skull and regresses even further. She's now in "Gorilla country" hmm, I wonder how things will end? It's Beauty And The Beast if Walt Disney wore fur bikinis, and imagined being fondled by gorillas named Spanky. It's time to unleash the Beast in all of us happy honeymoon as we marry up The Bride And The Beast.
The Bride And The Beast opens with Laura and Dan, just married and already planning a honeymoon safari to Africa. Dan, the quintessential Great White Hunter, has decked out his pad with hundreds of trophies, has a native servant Taro (played by an American actor in black-face) who calls his master "Bawana", and keeps a huge gorilla named "Spanky" (that's actually Ray "Crash" Corrigan under all that fur) in a cage in his basement. Laura, who admits she's had a strange psychic connection with man's hairy cousins her entire life, presses up against Spanky's cage and the sexual tension is electric! Later on their honeymoon evening while the couple are sleeping in separate beds and there's a clear signpost Spanky escapes from his cage, and starts to get overly amorous with Laura. Dan shoots the monkey dead, and they return to their separate beds. Happy Honeymoon.
Laura is clearly shaken by her hairy ordeal, and the family doctor, who just happens to be an expert in hypnotism, is intrigued by her fetish for angoras and dreams in which she's covered in "kitten's fur". Regressing further under hypnosis, she discovers she was a gorilla in a previous life, and re-experiences her death at the hands of native hunters. Here's two of Ed's peccadilloes springing to life from the script's page: his transvestitism, and his keen interest in reincarnation and hypnotism. The doctor's character was directly inspired by his chiropractor Tom Mason, Bela Lugosi's body double in Plan 9, who's credited here as "script consultant".
Things get bogged down when the Great White Hunter takes his bride to Africa. Ah, Africa stock footage capital of the world! I suspect the two never leave the studio none of the shots of wild animals match the action, and when driving a truck, they drive past the same clump of trees seven or eight times in the middle of the savanna! The last half is essentially a lame chase between Bawana and a couple of renegade tigers that is, until Laura cracks her skull and regresses even further. She's now in "Gorilla country" hmm, I wonder how things will end? It's Beauty And The Beast if Walt Disney wore fur bikinis, and imagined being fondled by gorillas named Spanky. It's time to unleash the Beast in all of us happy honeymoon as we marry up The Bride And The Beast.